Player #64: Frank B. LaPorte. Infielder with the Washington Senators in 1912-1913. 1,185 hits and 16 home runs in 11 MLB seasons. He debuted with the New York Highlanders in 1905-1907 and 1908-1910. His best season was 1911 with the St. Louis Browns as he posted a .361 OBP with 82 RBIs in 565 plate appearances. He finished his career with the Federal League's Indianapolis Hoosiers/Newark Peppers in 1914-1915, including the Federal League pennant in 1914. He was the 1914 Federal League RBI champion. He was the first player to play for both the New York and Boston rival teams from the American League.
LaPorte's SABR biography: In the annals of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, there aren’t too many players who started with New York, then played for Boston, and then played for New York again. Frank LaPorte wasn’t the only one, but he was the first. . . .
. . . The year 1911 was the first time in LaPorte’s career that he had the opportunity to play consistently at his preferred position, second base. He appeared in 136 games (with the St. Louis Browns), 133 of them at second, and he hit .314 (almost 50 points higher than anyone else on the team) and drove in 82 runs, 20 more than any other Brown. The team itself fared poorly (45-107, in last place in the American League and 56½ games out of first place.
LaPorte was on the same pace in 1912, and things were proceeding well enough through his first 80 games. The Browns were an improved ballclub on offense, and LaPorte was hanging right in there, hitting .312 and having knocked in 38 – when he was suddenly sold to the Senators on August 6. George Stovall had taken over as manager 39 games into the St. Louis season, but why would the Browns dump a player who’d been doing so well? Sporting Life had an answer, if a bit of a brusque one: “It didn’t take George long to realize that LaPorte was a drone. And, as a natural result, he lost his job. LaPorte didn’t fit into Stovall’s scheme of play. Neither does any other man who isn’t a fighter and a hustler.”
Clark Griffith was now the manager in Washington and sought LaPorte, whom he knew from when he was managing in New York. He acquired him as a utility player, however, not to use him as a regular. “It is not intended to play LaPorte regularly unless someone is hurt,” stated Washington Post columnist Joe S. Jackson the morning after the trade. As it turned out, work was found and LaPorte got into 40 more games, hitting .309. While with the Senators, he was one of several players who saved many men and women during a hotel fire in Detroit on September 15.
It was a disappointing year for LaPorte in 1913; he appeared in just 79 games and batted only .252, but the Senators’ starting infielders each played fairly full seasons and Griffith wasn’t about to mess with matters, given that the team was in the pennant hunt all year long, finishing second – though LaPorte’s bat might have helped give them a boost in the middle months when things weren’t looking quite as good. About a week before the end of the season – on September 27 – Griffith sold LaPorte’s contract to the Kansas City Blues of the American Association.
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